Five minutes at In-Cosmetics with… Fabrice Lefèvre, Givaudan

Dr Fabrice Lefèvre is Marketing & Innovation Director at Givaudan Active Beauty, the ingredients division of the world’s largest flavours and fragrances house. He is also the manager of a company site at Toulouse that Givaudan acquired along with Libragen

What is Givaudan Active Beauty doing at In-Cosmetics?

One of our big goals is to tighten our relationship with the Fragrance division and see what synergies there are in working together. As well as incorporating fragrances into skin care products, we intend to move into fine fragrances to see how we can inspire customers by adding active ingredients into their fragrances. The ingredients part is what is exhibiting here but we have a lot of fragrances people here too, because we share the same customers. We are seeking to push the boundaries in terms of creativity and innovation by bundling fragrances with active ingredients.

So how are you doing that?

A patented concept we launched here is [Yu], the first fine fragrance proven in tests to protect the skin microbiome. All perfumers know that the development of fragrance is connected to the skin’s flora. If you can protect that microbiome, you have a much more reproducible and efficient way to deliver a fragrance to the skin. The name stands for ‘Your Uniqueness’. You can express your uniqueness by the fragrance you wear but also protect your skin microflora – which really are unique for everyone. We launched [Yu] at a VIP party to which a perfumer from Paris came, who will craft personalised perfumes for ten selected winners. We collected skin samples from them and are sending these to our R&D centre in the south of France to be sequenced. We will engrave the map of their skin microflora in a black box which will contain the perfume with their individual active ingredient.

What else is new?

We have three new active ingredients. The first, which has won a Cosmetic Design Award, is PrimalHyal™ Gold, the world’s first hydrated hyaluronic acid. Until now it has been impossible to incorporate hyaluronic acid into oil-based formulae because it is super water-soluble, while powder blends have no efficacy. PrimalHyal™ Gold can be blended into dry powders for make-up or oil for sun care, bringing real efficacy and hydration. Another is Revivyl™, a product for protecting the skin microbiome. We have four studies showing its efficacy in terms of dry skin syndrome, wrinkles, skin suppleness and reconstruction of the skin barrier.

And the third?

The third is ResistHyal™, a blend of low and high molecular weight hyaluronic acid. The small molecules get into the hair fibre, while the large ones create a moisture film around it. The beauty of this for consumers is that we are bringing the benefits of hyaluronic acid from skin care into hair care. It only works at a very specific ratio – simply putting hyaluronic acid on the hair doesn’t work – and because of that we have been able to patent it. This works at seven levels all from one ingredient: moisturisation, anti-frizz, shininess, volume, suppleness, which has been evaluated by hairdressers, anti-pollution and mechanical resistance. It is super-sustainable because it is made by biofermentation – it is the same hyaluronic acid as any other, but for the careful blending based on our expertise in the field. This is the first time hyaluronic acid has been used in a hair care product.